Vault #8: Gold Market

The Price of Gold

Victorian gold provided the money and credit to stimulate trade and industrialisation in Britain, Europe and North America. Investors in the northern hemisphere viewed Victoria, with its burgeoning population, as a very active market for consumer and luxury goods and a seemingly inexhaustible source of raw materials like wool, wheat, minerals and meat.

British technology, particularly in the areas of heavy industry, railways and communications, aided Victoria's need for rapid development, as the colony's population expanded at an unprecedented rate.